What We Settle For
by AmberKyep
Summary: This is a story about what we settle for and what was meant to be. It's a oneshot SaraGrissom fic.


AN: Just felt like writting this. I like it. It's a little sad. Oh well. Enjoy:) It's a oneshot too so expect no further chapters.

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This is a story of what we settle for, and what was meant to be.

There are some things you know. Some things that are just so plain, so obvious. Some things are just plain and simple truth.

But just because you know...just because it is common knowledge. That doesn't mean anything in the end. Knowledge doesn't mean anything when the world is dependent of action and movement and reaction.

And just because there is the truth, doesn't mean it can't be morphed and changed and shifted. The truth cane have several variations, interpretations and twisted images in different people's minds. You can really convince yourself of anything if need be.

This is a story of what is the truth, what is right, and what we settle for. A story of what was meant to be, and what actually happens. We cannot always have what we are meant to. So we settle for less.

I've had to do that, we've all had to do that. Sometimes it's a frivolous, mundane things. You meant to get the apple pie, but they were out so you had to settle for something else. Simple, nonsense stuff.

When humans, actual breathing, living souls are involved, it's gets very complicated real quick. Things are no longer, first-glance-simple. Things take on whole new meanings and feelings and layers. The truth becomes so abstract and twisted and confusing, so hard to decipher.

In matters of the heart, when dealing with love, the ability to convince yourself of anything becomes more prominent. More obvious. Especially when you are trying to convince yourself of a hope that just isn't there. You can simply create something out of nothing.

I speak from experience on this matter.

And accepting that your hope has no foundation. That you hope isn't really there. That you really must settle for less because nothing is going to change. That is the hardest part.

I speak from experience on this as well.

You only have one true love, one soul mate. And sometimes, things just aren't possible. It could be for many reasons. Or there could be no reasons at all why it shouldn't work.

My case fell somewhere in between. It rested mostly on the fact that the other person wouldn't take the risk. Wouldn't make the jump with me. And in the end, you can't force someone to jump.

So, I woke up one day, and decided this was it. I wasn't going to wait, I just wasn't. I was still young, I was not yet 40. I had plenty of life in me, ahead of me. You can't spend your whole life waiting for something to happen. Waiting for a day that will never come.

Sometimes things don't work out. Things don't happen the way they should.

So you stand up, you move on, and you settle for something less.

I did.

Mark. Mark Figaro. He was who I settled for.

Mark is a nice man. A kind man. he loves me very much, and I love him. But he is not my true love, he just isn't. But then you can't always have your true love.

We'll get along. Maybe we'll have kids, maybe not. I'll go on with my job, with my life. Things will fall into a pattern. The wheel will keep turning and things will keep going.

Some days I will dwell on what could have happened, what should have happened. I'll think on them. I'll think but I won't despair. Things have happened, and I've made my decisions.

Maybe one day he will realize that he's to late. Maybe not. His realization, if it ever happens, won't change anything. Because decisions have been made, and I am no longer waiting.

There might be a day that I will regret what I chose to do. There might not. The future in itself is so vast and uncertain and always changing. That day might never come, or that day might be tomorrow. I don't know.

Things that were once meant to be will never happen.

This is a story of what we settle for, and what was meant to be.

I've been waiting, waiting for him to turn around and look. To pull his head out of the microscope and take notice. I waited fatefully and nothing could deter me for the longest time.

I knew there was little hope, but still I waited. I waited because I loved him.

There was a time, I almost left the lab, my job, everything. I almost quit. And then I got a small plant delivered to me. With a card. "From Grissom."

That kept me hoping. Kept me waiting. Restored my faith.

But things went downhill. I saw it happening and I dreaded it, feared it, hated it. But it was happening.

_"But then, all of a sudden, we get a second chance. Somebody young and beautiful shows up. Somebody... we could care about. And she offers us a new life, with her."_

I heard him speak these words, to a suspect. I was watching behind the glass, looking in the room, invisible to everyone else.

_"But we have a big decision to make right? Because we'd have to risk everything we've worked for in order to have her."_

And my heart beat furiously in my chest. I knew he was speaking about me. I just knew.

I also knew that this man would kid himself, trick himself. He would tell himself that he was only playing along. Faking it to "bond" with the suspect. Faking it so he could relate.

But I knew it was real.

_"I couldn't do it."_

Couldn't. Past tense. He spoke as if everything was already over and done with. And now there was no doubt in my mind that it was real, that he meant it.

He spoke as if he had given up already. I wanted to shout, to tell him that No, it wasn't to late. That he still had a chance. That I would give him that chance. Because then, at that moment, it wasn't to late.

But days, months passed. Things went back into their pattern with little to restore my hope once more. Nothing happened to rekindle my fire.

So time passed by and things went on. And then I decided to wait no longer. To move on.

This is a story of what we settle for, and what was meant to be.


End file.
